against. Find content, dear, in being the sweet place in our garden--that
has so pitifully few flowers. Do not long for the hard, uncomfortable
places on the other side of the garden wall!"

Despite the Superintendent's expression--despite the gentle tone of her
voice, Rose-Marie felt a sudden desire to cry out against the irony of it
all. She was so tired of being classed with the flowers! "They toil not,
neither do they spin," came back to her, from a certain golden text that
she had learned, long ago, in Sunday-school. Even at the time it had
seemed to her as if the flowers enjoyed lives that were a shade too easy!
At the time it had seemed unfair that they, who were not workers, should
be beautiful--more beautiful than the ants, for instance, that
uncomplainingly toiled all day long for their existence.

"I don't want to be a flower," she exclaimed, almost fretfully, "I want
to be a worth while member of society--that's what I want! What's the use
of being a decoration in a garden! What's the use of knowing only the
sunshine? I want to know storms, too, and gales of wind. I want to share
the tempests that you go through!" She hesitated; and then--"I read a
book once," she said slowly, "I forget what it was--but I remember, in
one place, that a woman was being discussed. She was a very beautiful
elderly woman who, despite her age, had a face as unlined and calm as a
young girl's face could be. One character in the book commented upon the
woman's youth and charm, and another character agreed that she _was_
beautiful and charming, but that she'd be worth more if she had a few
lines on her face. 'She's never known tears,' the character said, 'she's
never lived _deeply_ enough to know tears! Her life has been just a
surface life. If you go down deep enough into the earth you find water,
always. If you go down deep enough into life you invariably find tears.
It's one of the unbreakable rules!'" Rose-Marie paused, for a moment, and
stole a covert glance at the Superintendent's face. "You don't want me to
be a woman whose life is only a surface life," she pleaded, "and it will
be just that if you keep me from helping, as I want to help! You don't
want me to have a perfectly unlined face when I'm eighty years old?"

All at once the Superintendent was laughing. "You child!" she exclaimed
when the first spasm of mirth had passed, "you blessed child! If you
could know how ridiculously young you looked, sitting there and talking